By Takunda Mandura
TRT Afrika, Harare
Zimbabwean High Court has dismissed an application by 14 MPs and nine senators from the opposition Citizen Coalition for Change legislators seeking their instatement in the parliament.
The MPs were recalled last month recalled by Sengezo Tshabangu, who claims to be the party's interim secretary general but the party says it did not authorise the recall.
However, it has been approved by the speaker of the parliament who declared their seats vacant.
The lawmakers at the centre of the dispute include 14 MPs and nine senators. They had initially listed the National Assembly Speaker, the Senate President and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission as some of the respondents in their case but later withdrew their action against them.
Reasons
The MPs ''have not established their case on a balance of probabilities as required by law and are therefore not entitled to the declaratur they seek,” Justice Munamato ruled in a 28-page judgement.
The judge said the lawmakers had made a “mortal error” by failing to cite the party, CCC, as a respondent in their application given they had presented themselves as its members.
“Their parent is the party itself. It is the one which knows who is a member and who is not. It ought to have been in court to speak about these issues. It was required to support the lawmakers’ claims that it is not the party which initiated the termination of their tenures in parliament,” the judge ruled.
The court also ruled that the applicants had failed to prove with supporting documents that Mr Tshabangu who started their recall process was not an official of the party.
Party's reaction
The judgment by Justice Munamato of the High Court on Saturday is seen as blow to the lawmakers and the opposition CCC party which says it was studying the ruling for further action.
"We have received the judgment of the High Court, and our lawyers are still studying it. We will provide a comprehensive statement regarding the same,'' the party said in a statement.
It reiterated that Tshabangu who was behind the MPs' recall ''is not a member of CCC'' and that the party CCC, which is led by its candidate in the last presidential election Nelson Chamisa, ''has not initiated any recall of a Member of Parliament or Senate.''
By-elections
By-elections are due to take place on December 9 in nine of the constituencies whose MPs have been recalled.
According the Zimbabwean electoral law, the country's president is obliged to call for by-elections once vacancies arise in parliamentary constituencies.
The latest political developments come about three months after the country's general elections in which incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa won a second term against his main rival Nelson Chamisa of the CCC party.
